The catalytic steam gasification of biomass was carried out in a lab-scale fixed bed reactor in order to evaluate the effects of temperatures and the ratio of steam to biomass (S/B) on the gasification performance. The bed temperature was varied from 600 to 900 and the S/B from 0 to 2.80. The results show that higher temperature contributes to more hydrogen production. The introduction of steam improves the dry gas yield and carbon conversion efficiency. But excessive steam will lower hydrogen content and degrade fuel gas quality. As S/B are 2.10, the hydrogen content reach the maximum, up to 52.7%. Crown Copyright (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Association for Hydrogen Energy. All rights reserved.